


Careful Kids, TV Rots Your Brain Out

by Sukila



Category: Hello Charlotte (Video Games)
Genre: Anxiety, Attempted Murder, Blood and Gore, Depression, F/F, HC3 Spoilers, Hair Loss, Heavy Angst, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Typing Quirks, Unresolved Emotional Tension, mentions of needles, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 06:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19126849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sukila/pseuds/Sukila
Summary: She just wants to understand. When did father start loving Scarlett Eyler so much, more than her, even? What makes this tiny-minded little defect so special, enough to earn be given the love of anyone and everyone so readily? She’d tried so hard before, she really had, but sorrow boredom came quickly when she so often repeated that same routine. Anri didn’t love her, she just wanted her to change. The tenants didn’t love her, they just wanted her out of the way. And now...not even father loved her, haunted by the words of his own, and seeing someone else in her, (he saw Scarlett, always Scarlett,) that she couldn’t quite place.She just didn’t understand…not even as she flipped through channel after channel, watching the copies (love,) lie, (live,) die, and (suffer) torment her.Was she so hard to love?





	Careful Kids, TV Rots Your Brain Out

It was always a community choice, or, at least, the illusion of one. It was simple; pick someone who’d been publicly embarrassed, someone with the rumour mill to back their execution, or even just the least popular in that brief moment of unseen judgement. She was their entertainer, the jury and the judge, it was a duty she’d upheld since the founding of her clan of purists.

 

And it was just. Never. _Enough._

 

Which didn't make sense, of course! She was a Charlotte straying from the path, banking a par four on their moral code and watching the world burn! An anarchist to the system! A wolf in sheep’s clothing keeping the school under the iron weight of her bat!

 

But it was boring.

 

So, she tried anew, breeding new discourse in the introduction of bioterrorism, fun, new, untested drugs for the students to try out, and even whatever monster had been unleashed and was currently lurking in the bottom of the pond. The executions continued, Vincents died to signify the passing of days, and she felt herself becoming less and less white as they were dropped on the daily.

 

It was mind-numbing.

 

She acted like she didn’t need him, and, obviously, sidling up to the creator is a great way for her story to go south if he suddenly decides her autonomy and pissy attitude are less than ideal. He doesn’t...but that isn’t important, nor is the fear lingering in her chest when he looks at her for too long a time in a quiet moment.

When would she stop being interesting to Father?

~~When would he, again, begin to see his tormentor lurking around shadowed corners and strike out in muted discourse and frustration?~~

When would she be erased?

~~When would he take out that emotion on her?~~

When would this world die?

~~When will he just _hit_ her already?! ~~

 

And she was _angry._

 

The burning in her lungs as she coughed up the ashes of another, letting them scatter on the stage like a show of caution; letting ~~the~~ _her_ audience slurp up tainted air as though on the wrong end of a cancer stick. She _hated_ this person, hoped they saw that in her cheery smile; the bloodlust was waiting to be caught, waiting for someone else’s face to contort in fear at their hostess when they finally realise the endgame.

 

Oh, what a finale it would be!

 

Pretty little geisers spitting up gas at every check, ready to suffocate the showing room in a single motion; the sudden fit to end them all. It made her feel powerful, like a god amongst her followers, unknowing and without thought of their benevolent god being constantly ready to strike them down in an act of pure wrath. Was this what Father felt each day? Like he was far too human to carry the burden of possibly judging others? Was that why she was made to rebel?

 

The possibility seemed to increase in merit at each meeting, where fear became indulged to, a thundering beat within as she wondered when she herself would be judged. She watched, in this state of anxiety, as he flipped through the channels, lacking the previous anger, replaced with lackluster wishes and hope for someone he’d never even known. She broke the TV, but she’d already seen enough to know too much.

 

He loved her.

 

He _wanted_ her to exist.

 

But if Scarlett Eyler was the wanted child… Where did that leave her?

 

Mother’s thoughts haunted her mind when she crept past the doors of the thirteenth floor, emotions that didn’t belong to her but stuck and stuck like scratches and scars, drying into patterns of butterflies to give a semblance of normalcy. It wasn’t white, wasn’t pure- ~~Disgusting disgusting she was so _fucking_ digusting ~~ -so why stick around in a body father may not love?

 

The feeling crept in like the hunger raging in the ringing in her ears and the dizzy feeling when she stood- ~~She wasn’t _lonel_ _y_ , she _wasn’t_ ~~ ~~.~~ It made her want to keep laying there, lacking the energy to muster the usual face for fake, tiny people in their even faker world. Cold spells didn’t leave shivers when the fever flushed her face, making her want to burrow into like a quilt of snow- ~~White, white, white snow…~~ Because sometimes...it hit her all at once, like a tsunami of devastation, ravaging her mindspace with doubt and pain and complete apathy for life.

 

They _hated_ her.

 

Those girls… The tenants… Anri- _Henrietta._

 

She fought to make them see her, for their _attention,_ delight creeping into her masochistic mind when scowls met her eyes- ~~Because they were _looking,_ looking at _her_ of all people ~~

 

It didn’t matter if the curiosity had driven a little girl to screams and fits of fear as they used her as fodder, where a once safe place from scissors and taunts and jeers for someone _built_ to be weak was broken down all the more.

 

It didn’t matter if Aiden’s lacking sanity kept her ‘safe,’ with the word being synonymous with growls and scratches as he keeps her still to stitch and _stitch,_ never seeing her scream that _she’s alive, please, please stop!_

 

It didn’t matter if they’d never given her as much as a passing glance before her change, always averting their eyes like she was a hallucination they were desperate to ignore.

 

~~They made her this way, but it didn’t matter.~~

 

It was normal, now, to hear screams instead of silence, to find blades on every toothbrush and to feel their utter lack of care for her as she uses them. They dragged her by her hair, kicking and screaming into unconsciousness as ripped strands leave a useless trail that only she would know. Killed her before she could even raise a blade to her own neck in an attempt to be relevant, flooding vents with noxious air that stung her skin, spreading sores and lesions about like the skin of a wish-maker.

 

A wish-maker… She had hers, still, too afraid of what she’d find, after all, what did a desire really mean if it just killed the one desperate for it?

 

What was she desperate for…?

 

 ~~Love.~~ (The obvious answer, prickling at her heart and tearing at her insides with a vicious, needy fervor as she shoved Henrietta into the pond, and wished she was given it on holidays instead of ropes and pain and whatever she deserved from a malicious monster of a caretaker.)

 

 ~~Safety.~~ (A craving in her body as it stood at attention, waiting for a smack to her skull and the lull of pain, even as she lay next to father in the infirmary, safe and surrounded by warm, warm care that smelled of antiseptic and ink.)

 

 ~~The end.~~ (Sluggish movements reflecting just how tired her mind and body were as they came back, warning after warning thrown away because what did it even fucking matter…?)

 

No, she didn’t need anything, she was content- ~~Liar~~ -She was okay- ~~Liar~~ -There was nothing to be sad about, she decided, scrubbing away at her eyes when they began to sweat and clog and blur away her surroundings- ~~Because that _wasn’t safe, she needed to be awake!_ ~~

 

Still, it haunted her; if Scarlett Eyler was the wanted child…

 

Scarlett Eyler, a girl that resisted love by nature, but fell into it like the innocent child she’d become, imprinting her image in their realm with bubbly sadness and contented smiles too old for such a little one. She was endearing, but not perfect, she was happy, but not without sympathy, and she was foggy and sad and everything wrong, but...she _tried._

 

Charlotte Q84 didn’t know what it meant to try anymore. Hungry for love, but never able to reach out her hand and reveal she needed it, much less take what was offered endlessly by Henrietta.

 

She used to try though...she wasn’t _always_ like this, and she knew it.

 

But then...why was it like this?

 

She hung her head in the halls, watching people pass through the courtyard windows, breathing in clean, non-vicious air yet still feeling that burn in her chest. Charles passed by in his vessel, keeping the Vincent safe as he went to look for his creation, his perfect little protagonist turned sour. Henrietta tip-toed her way through the crowds, swathes of people slowly thickening as White Society meetings became infrequent- ~~Became not enough~~ -And it held so much of that same endearing, _foolish_ energy, she couldn’t help but look away with a jealous scowl.

 

The scowl turned to sobs, with a lone girl crying out to her false, tiny world, “Am I so hard to love?”

 

There was no answer.

 

But that was okay...she didn’t expect one anymore.


End file.
